I don’t really want to be writing this post, there were comebacks and playoff changing results over the week thirteen games to discuss, another coach fired, and closer to home the picks competition through thirteen weeks has me level with Dan’s dad, but there’s a bigger topic to discuss.

There are always so many things going on around the league and I didn’t quite get to the San Francisco 49ers cutting Reuben Foster after he was charged on a count of domestic violence, and the subsequent claiming of him off waivers by Washington. This wasn’t so much ducking the issue as the timing of news not quite lining up with when I was sitting down to write. However, on Friday TMZ released a video they had obtained of the Kansas City Chiefs’ Kareem Hunt shoving and kicking a woman in an incident that took place in in a hotel back in February. The Chiefs were aware of the incident but cut Hunt straight away as the video, which they had not been able to obtain, proved that Hunt had lied to them. I don’t know if seeing the reaction to Washington’s claiming of Foster, or the fact that there was video was the deciding factor, but no team put a claim in for Hunt so he cleared waivers and is now a free agent.

Both players are now on the commissioner’s exempt list and we are back to discussing the way the league handles discipline and in particular violence against women.

We have moved on slightly from the two game suspension that was handed to Ray Rice after his domestic violence situation, but the parallels with the Hunt situation are all too clear given that once again it was the media finding the video that triggered a response from the NFL. You can make the argument that it is harder for the NFL to approach the relevant parties and obtain the video through official channels than it is for TMZ to get hold of the video but it is hard to feel sympathy for a league that hadn’t even interviewed Hunt about the incident as part of their investigation. I’m also not sure how much credit the Chiefs should get for their quick action as this is not the only incident that is swirling around Hunt and they still have Tyreek Hill on their roster, who assaulted his pregnant partner whilst at college and was suspended but they drafted him anyway.

Even when there is video of an assault that doesn’t seem to always provoke a reaction from a team or the league. The punishment for Joe Mixon, who punched a woman in a coffee shop after an altercation that left her with multiple facial fractures having hit a table as she fell, was to not be invited to the draft combine and the Bengals saw fit to draft him in the second round…

To me eyes we have an interaction of three factors that contribute to the poor way the NFL handles these situations.

The first factor is an extension of something that permeates the league for all players, which is the greater the talent, the greater the tolerance and teams seem incapable of resisting a talent that could give them a competitive edge on the field except if it directly hurts their profitability. There are multiple players currently playing that have such incidents in the past but there is still no roster spot for Colin Kaepernick after his ghastly crime of peaceful protest. It can only be because Washington were worried about missing out that they put in a claim for Reuben Foster. They can talk all they want about having multiple players on their roster who played with him in college and who could help provide an environment for him to turnaround his life. At the end of the day they were willing to pay thousands of dollars a week to a player who cannot play, train or even attend a game at the moment, in the hope that if he can work his way back onto the field his talent will be worth the bad PR. Washington are not the only team who have run this equation and come to such a decision, although few have been quite so ham fisted in the execution or seemingly surprised by the negative reaction to their move.

The second factor is that it seems that even with a new standard released by the league (without consultation with the players I should add) after the Ray Rice incident that saw Ezekiel Elliott miss six games last season, it still feels like the process is far too arbitrary. Some combination of the teams and the league investigate situations and then something might or might not happen, unless a video appears and then something definitely will. Now carrying out your own investigation is not easy and it takes a long time for police investigations and legal proceedings to be fully resolved. Suspension and placement on something like the commission exempt list is not in of itself a bad idea, but the arbitrary way the NFL seems to handle the investigations and subsequent discipline does not inspire confidence. Nor does the lack of openness in the process, which would help people to understand how decisions have been made. Currently it feels like these decisions are currently made in reaction to media scrutiny rather than the nature of the situation themselves.

Finally, the third factor is that we don’t handle these incidents well as a society. If the recent movements to give greater voice to the victims of domestic or sexual violence have shown us anything, it is not only that such violence and sexual predation is wider spread than many were prepared to admit, but that it is still very hard to get such cases successfully prosecuted. Whether it is the rugby rape trial in Ireland, or the Greg Hardy case where he was found guilty initially but late cleared when the girlfriend who had been choked and thrown on a couch covered in assault rifles couldn’t be contacted to be tried again in front of a jury, it is hard to get justice or establish what happened.

If the legal system doesn’t seem to be serving victims and results in a confused situation, is it any wonder that sports leagues, setup to govern a sport are failing to adequately deal with it but that doesn’t mean they get a free pass. The NFL could handle this so much better. There is a world of difference between someone being denied the opportunity to make a living and having the right to play a sport for a lot of money. The NFL is already providing some training and resources to players, but they could both be more active in advocating for change and holding their players to a higher standard.

It is all too easy to slip into characterisation of men who commit assault or acts of domestic violence as men out of control. Yes there can be anger issues, sometimes substance abuse, and if these are a result of work environments then teams and the league have a duty of care to their players but the narrative of monsters is damaging because the problem is most commonly men. Most assaults on women are carried out by men they know, not random monsters or strangers but by someone they know. NFL players are people with specific talents but still people, and this is a problem that is not limited to sports stars, it is a reflection of very real problems that are far too prevalent in society. With the resources available to them sports franchises can do more and if you ask why, how about because they have the power to reach directly into the very culture that needs to change? If we are to stop this problem then men need to talk about it, call each other out on attitudes that need to change, and be willing allies in the changing of society. It’s not a simple thing and requires consistent engagement and discussion, but it’s that rather than paying lip service that will change things. Kareem Hunt has been asking for forgiveness and has acknowledged he has done wrong. He can ask for forgiveness, and maybe one day he can earn it, but it should take more than words to deserve it. It’s not something we can forget, and nor should we. Only his actions going forward can rehabilitate him but given his age and talent I suspect that we have not seen the last of him on a football field. I’m not sure if he can earn that chance in my eyes, and certainly the NFL should make damn sure he tries before they let him anywhere near the field, but I don’t know if they will. I’m not sure that doesn’t speak more eloquently about the scale of the problem than anything I have written in this post but I had to try. We all do.

Nothing much really happened in week ten of the NFL so maybe we should all just prepare ourselves for the upcoming Monday night matchup between the LA Rams and the Kansas City Chiefs? Not buying that… okay I guess there’s only one place to start for me so let’s do this.

The Cincinnati Bengals didn’t just get beat, they had a fifty burger put up on them by a rampant New Orleans Saints team. I told you I was scared about this game! There wasn’t just one thing but there never is in a game like this, it was a combination of factors that produced an absolute thumping. However, for about sixteen game minutes things were okay and looked vaguely competitive. Yes the Saints marched down the field and scored on their opening drive but the Bengals were able to start with a touchdown drive of their own and even pulled a Saints move with their backup quarterback Jeff Dreskel taking a snap with Andy Dalton lining up as a receiver. However, whilst the Saints continued the pattern that would dominate the game, i.e. moving the ball without any trouble and scoring on every drive bar the last on, the Bengals were unable to keep their offence moving consistently. There were flashes from Joe Mixon and Tyler Boyd but the offence sputtered and were not able to match the Saints’ machine like efficiency. The Bengals having to punt on their second and third drives was one thing, but then when they did move the ball Andy Dalton threw an interception on a play that snapped with twenty-four seconds left in the half that was returned seventy-eight yards and just like that the Saints had time to squeeze in another touchdown to go into the half 35-7 up.

You could argue the second half was better as the Bengals only gave up sixteen further points and scored another touchdown with Jeff Driskel in the game after Dalton had been pulled, but clearly not. The Bengals have a lot of injuries in the back seven of the defence, but there has also been a lot of talk about grey areas in the new defence scheme and clearly there is something to it as defensive coordinator Teryl Austin has been fired and Marvin Lewis is doing something he has always been reluctant to do, and that’s call the defence himself. How this is going to work I don’t know, but just to throw extra murk into the waters, or possibly improve the juggling of game day, Hue Jackson has been rehired – this time as special assistant to the head coach. The players have been saying it’s not time to panic as their destiny is still in their own hands, but if ten is the magic number of wins that nearly always gets you into the playoffs, then they would have to go 5-2 the rest of the way including two games against the Browns and visits to the Chargers, Steelers and next week the Ravens. I keep hearing that you know how good your team is by how they travel and the Bengals are 2-2 on the road but have had two bad losses already and three divisional road games coming up. I’m not calling them done just yet but I think it’s more likely than not that things don’t get much better.

Oh yeah, and the Saints right now are the best team in the league.

Can I stop now?

Good.

So, the fluid nature of teams and the small sample size continue to confuse those of us picking game but it does entertain us. The New England Patriots lost to a Tennessee Titans team who have had two solid wins after the bye and whilst it is too early to hit the panic button if you are a Patriots fan, they are outside of the top ten in DVOA in the second half of the season for the first time since 2005 with Tom Brady as the quarterback and since 2008 when Matt Cassel led the team (this has been taken from Aaron Schatz’s weekly update that you can read here). In the absence of time to watch coaching tape this week (life just keeps getting in the way) I may well try to just watch this game to get a better idea of how it happened.

Other notable results were the Buffalo Bills scoring forty-one points after Matt Barkley made his first start in two years and his first for the Bills, which has led to the release of poor Nathan Peterman and who knows if he will get another shot with a team. The Pittsburgh Steelers put up fifty points against the Carolina Panthers on Thursday night whilst both the Chiefs and Rams won their games ahead of the matchup. Interestingly both teams has asked to play the Broncos in Denver before their Mexico city game but the league was smart enough to deny both teams and in a twist of fate with fears about the safety of the pitch in the Azteca stadium the game has been shifted back to LA. The Chicago Bears ran out easy winners against the Detroit Lions but the real test comes next week when they face the Minnesota Vikings coming off their bye.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers managed to put up five hundred yards of offence and only come away with three points, which just should not be possible and is the kind of thing I deserve for picking them. Washington continues their improbable run atop the NFC East but their coaching staff should get credit for finding a way to win despite the raft of offensive line injuries. Things got even better for them when the Dallas Cowboys went into Philadelphia and beat the Eagles meaning that Washington are now two games ahead at the top of the division. However, not only did the Cowboys defence continue to look pretty good and have moved away from their reliance on Sean Lee, but there were signs of their offence evolving. It’s not as if they are suddenly the Saints, Rams, or Chiefs, but with more motion before the snap, the addition of Amari Cooper, and Ezekiel Elliott catching some balls out of the backfield to complement his one hundred and fifty yards on the ground there is a chance the Cowboys could make a nuisance of themselves.

The other contender for game I would still like to see is the Jacksonville Jaguars continuing their losing streak, this week to an Indianapolis Colts team who have dragged themselves to 4-5 record with Andrew Luck continuing to shake off the worries about his return to the game. We are a long way from him being subbed out for a Hail Mary play.

Finally, the Cleveland Browns separated themselves from the 49ers and the Giants with their third win of the season that also likely scuppered the Falcons unlikely recent playoff surge and the Oakland Raiders are officially the worst team in the league thanks to the Giants win over the 49ers on Monday night that leaves the Raiders as the only single win team. I’m sure the schedulers were thrilled about how these two once mighty franchises were faring going into this week’s prime time game, but at least it was competitive. Right now I’d take that from the Bengals…

The third pre-season game is usually seen as the dress rehearsal for a team, but even then there is no set formula on who plays as the coaches are most interested in preparing for the season whilst minimising the risk to their starters. You can also see rookies and other players stepping up so they can get reps with the starters against other quality players to get a better evaluation. This complicates what we can interpret from the outside, which is why it is important not to put too much stock in what you see in pre-season, but for those involved the football is important despite what some might tell you.

With all of the fourth pre-season games taking place on Thursday night, a logistical challenge is facing the teams as for the first time they are cutting from ninety without a cut down to seventy-five before tonight’s games, although many teams have already started to make some cuts. There is also a challenge for the Hard Knocks crew as they prepare everything for next Tuesday’s episode with a more compressed time frame. Sadly being in the UK I won’t get to see episode four of Hard Knocks before the week four games start tonight, so I’ll have to run through the week three games without the extra insight of the behind the scenes footage of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers who played the Cleveland Browns in their third pre-season game.

A number of players were held out or played limited snaps, so Jameis Winston was working without his full complement of options in the offence, and this did show. He floated a pass at a tight end that was intercepted, although he also escaped pressure and made a good pass to Freddie Martino later in the game, but it was rookie receiver Chris Goodwin who finished with most yards of any receiver. I think with a full complement of starters the Buccaneers will have an offence going in the right direction so we shouldn’t take too much from this game, but Winston will need to limit his interceptions. No one wants to lose their starting quarterback, and there are not enough quality starters floating around for teams to have a really good backup, but the Bucs might be concerned with the way Ryan Fitzpatrick has turned the ball over so far and they will be hoping that if he does get called upon in meaningful games that he reproduces some of his form from his 2015 season with the New York Jets and not what he has displayed so far.

As for the defence, they gave up some worrying plays to a Browns team that I think are going to cause some trouble for teams this season. You are always going to miss a player of Gerald McCoy’s ability, but he should be back for the regular season after being held out of this game with an injury, still there were not a lot of players that stood out to me. Part of that is due to not having coaching tape yet. This always makes it hard to truly see what is going on, you just can’t evaluate a secondary without the all twenty-two view, and the end zone view is brilliant for seeing how the front seven line up and play. Still, I did notice that Riley Bullough, a player I have mentioned multiple times this pre-season having been a player highlighted on Hard Knocks, did not get into the game on defence until the last drive on defence, and so whilst I did see him on special teams, he will be desperate to put up good tape tonight to try to catch on to a team, be it the Buccaneers or somebody else who has liked what they have seen.

For the Cincinnati Bengals, who took on Washington in their third warm up game, it has been a pre-season of questions rather than answers. Still, it was good to see John Ross get on the field, even if he didn’t make a catch, he demonstrated his speed on an end around run, and it will take a couple of weeks to shake of the rust as he makes his way back from a shoulder injury. I was also not expecting to see Andy Dalton over throwing the fastest man in combine history on a deep ball! It was much better to see the first team score a touchdown, and whilst the Bengals’ young tackles still had their problems, the offence functioned and has the potential to come alive if things break right for them during the season and the young players bed in.

The defence will be looking to make do round Shawn Williams injury, and he will be missed at safety, but the pass rush still looks good with defensive end Chris Smith catching the eye in every game and looks to be a potential bargain given the conditional pick the Bengals gave up to the Jacksonville Jaguars to get him. The young linebacker group got even younger with the trade of special teams stalwart Marquis Flowers to the New England Patriots and they will be without Vontaze Burfict for three games after his appeal against suspension was not successful. I can see why Marvin Lewis and the Bengals will be upset given their reasoning about the Kansas City Chiefs player being hit with a shoulder within five yards of the line of scrimmage, the player being in line with the target of a pump fake, and the ball being in Alex Smith’s hands, but Burfict has a history that precedes him and clearly is not being given the benefit of the doubt.

There’s a lot of questions about the Bengals, but at least they look to have made it to the start of the season relatively healthy and I still think they will do better than many have predicted, even if I’m not going to guarantee a playoff berth. I will say, I’m still deeply uncomfortable every time Mixon takes the field and I find it hard to see how I will ever resolve that pick.

Finally, having spoken about the hope I saw for the LA Rams offence on our last podcast, Jared Goff did not play well against the LA Chargers. More worrying for him will be the fact that the offence is designed well and seemed to run better with Sean Mannion as their quarterback. Whether Goff’s struggles can be partly put down to rookie receiver Cooper Kupp being withheld from the game due to a minor groin pull I don’t know, but the Rams third game did not go as well as their second, and it would surprise no one if the Rams had another rocky season. Still, I do see some signs of hope, I’m just unsure whether Goff can, or will be given the time to, become a franchise quarterback. It is also too early to tell how Sean McVay will do as a head coach, but I have a feeling he will turn out well given time, but that doesn’t necessarily mean things will work out for him in LA.

One last thing before the final pre-season games start last night. I stated on our last podcast that if you were going to watch pre-season games, that week three were the ones to watch as that was when the starters would play most. And I stand by that. But for those of us who have the disease as Ross Tucker puts it, these final games will be fascinating as the players we have never heard off, are playing for a chance to catch onto a roster, or practise squad. They just want to make the team and no one should question their efforts, and I intend to honour it by watching all three teams I have been following.

I woke up Saturday morning, a second draft day with two picks having taken place overnight, what players had been added to the roster? Then I read the story and my heart sank.

Joe Mixon is a name notorious to many, and had been one of the major discussion points leading up to the draft. There were other players in the draft with a recent history of violence, including a player selected in the first round who has recently been accused of rape, but with the surveillance video of the Mixon assault having been leaked, the evidence was there for all to see and Mixon was the first name discussed with major off-field issues.

For the record I have not watched the video, much like the Ray Rice video I don’t feel the need to witness one of the worse days the victim will ever have to face. In the particular case of Mixon, after exchanging words with Amelia Molitor, Molitor shoved and then slapped Mixon who responded by punching her in the face. Molitor fell to the floor, her face slamming into a table on the way past, leaving her with four facial fractures, including a broken jaw.

Unlike Ray Rice, who at age twenty-seven was coming towards the end of his running back career when he was suspended for the season, Mixon is a talented running back who is under twenty-one and enters the league ready to play, and so the Bengals decided that with the 48th pick of the draft, that he was worth the risk.

Male violence is sadly all too common, and is a societal problem not just one for NFL players. Overwhelmingly violence towards women and girls is carried out by men, and whilst men can be victims of domestic violence and women can be perpetrators, most violence – whether against women or men is perpetrated by men.

There is an argument for second chances, and for not only punishment but for rehabilitation. Mixon received a one-year deferred sentence and was ordered to undergo counselling along with 100 hours of community service. The assault occurred in 2014, and Mixon was suspended from football for the following year.

I’m not an expert on the sentencing of violent crimes, and not sure there is a definite correlation between circumstances and punishment, nor do I particularly like judges to be forced to give out specific sentences under restricted guidelines. To me the separation of powers that should be a part of well-structured democracy means that judges should have the freedom to interpret the law as best they can. However, I can’t help but feel that a sentence such as the one Mixon received is in part due to his status as a well know promising football player.

Still he has complied with the restrictions and by all accounts is still undergoing counselling and in his first interview as a Bengal has talked about controlling situations he places himself in and controlling his responses.

In the face of this it is worth noting that Mixon had a confrontation with a parking attendant after received a parking citation in 2016 where he ripped up the citations and threw them in the face of the attendant before inching forward with his vehicle to intimidate the office. This was on university property and he was suspended for a game.

On the other hand, he has recently settled a civil case brought by Molitor and they met to express their regrets. That said, Molitor is still dealing with the after affects of the assault, the psychological remaining long after the body has healed, and it is hard to see how the video being so widely distributed can do anything other than pick at the scars left behind. This is the legacy of violence even before social media and mass video made such moments so much harder to escape.

You can see how the Bengals are approaching the pick of Mixon from this article where you will see some familiar information.

We’ve had various NFL draft commentators talk about Mixon’s talent and referencing his off-field issues but not engage about them.

We’ve heard that only four teams were prepared to pick Mixon, although there are plenty of other players with violent incidents in the draft, and many of them were picked. There just wasn’t video evidence.

The NFL’s punishment for Mixon was to ban him from their combine event, which is a glorified prospect sports day in coverage, but for the team is mostly about getting to interview prospects, take accurate measurements, and carry out their own health checks.

I will refrain from my usual detailed criticism of Roger Goodell’s approach to discipline, and simply say that this so called punishment only really means that teams will have to go to a player’s pro day held at the university, and so this is not so much a punishment as a way for the NFL to not have to deal with such a player being at their combine event, by not having him be there. For the record, all thirty-two teams had a scout at Joe Mixon’s college pro day.

The sad fact is that this is not going away, and nor is the dilemma surrounding it. The Kansas City Chiefs faced this exact situation last year when they selected Tyreek Hill last year in the fifth round and he played excellently for them. Mina Kimes wrote an excellent piece entitled The uncomfortable reality of Tyreek Hill’s success and I’d highly encourage you to read it if you are not already familiar with it.

In fact go read it – it covers everything that is difficult about this topic, and then come back here.

Joe Mixon hasn’t even played a down for the Bengals and I know that I don’ want them to have picked him. The hard headed say that if you are going to pick such a player, then you might as well make sure you get the player you want and not worry about where he is picked. You have already made that decision. It’s just hard to apply the usual draft equation in this situation. The discussion of risk vs talent is simply not appropriate and I think I would feel like this if Mixon had been picked up as an undrafted free agent.

We can probably agree that there is no simple solution to this, and that we should keep having these conversations and that we should feel uncomfortable. Hell it should make us angry.

I’m disappointed that the Bengals picked Joe Mixon. I cannot see a world where I’m actively cheering on the player when I know what he has done. There have already been calls for a boycott of Bengals games in local papers, and to donate money to charity instead, certainly the money I was thinking of spending on a new jersey will go to a charity in the UK. I’m not pulling away from the Bengals as a team, I feel that would be cheating, I’ll watch every snap as usual and I will document what happens. I’ll be evaluating Mixon the player and how he acts. I will be just as conflicted. The joy has gone and may well never come back.